I’m very sceptical that BTP have had any input into this, as I rather think that they are busy enough with much more pressing safety and security matters than the mundane question (from a police point of view) as to whether strangers are allowed to share a sleeper berth (unless there are some new regulations about passenger safety on sleeper trains which I’m not aware of). On the basis of conversations which I’ve had with experienced sleeper hosts and team leaders for CS at Inverness and Fort William, I believe that CS are trapped between the proverbial rock and the proverbial hard place here. Folk don’t want fare increases, understandably, yet for the staff that I’ve talked to, until sharing was finally abolished, not a shift went by without someone (or many individuals) complaining that they were being made to share a cabin with a person they did not know (despite the fact that the possibility of sharing had been made clear when booking). In many cases, folk asked either to downgrade to the seats or to upgrade to first, which was not always possible with a busy or full train. I think that it soon became obvious to senior management that sharing with strangers was in fact a considerable source of complaints and dissatisfaction in the service (and also at odds with the high-end target market which CS, for right or for wrong, wished to pursue).
Apparently there was also a wider theme of passengers complaining about lack of privacy on the service, both in shared cabins and in the lounge car. I do feel that this is a pedantic complaint, but as the fares went up, I suppose management felt a more pressing need to heed it. This led to (at some point late last year) a bizarre (and entirely unsuccessful) experiment with an ostensible rule whereby passengers were not allowed to share tables with strangers in the lounge car (at least not in the evening). It soon became clear that this rule was absurd and nigh on impossible to enforce, and by the summer of this year (if not earlier) it had been forgotten about. Hopefully it has been put to bed for good and no attempts will be made to reintroduce it with the Mk5s!
I suppose that all these changes are part and parcel of the transition (whether we like it or not) from a convenient, good value overnight train into a high-end tourist ’experience’. I still remain to be convinced by the marketing strategy, but CS must be doing something right if they’re filling the train as they are doing at the moment. I do feel sorry for the poor passengers who do want to use it but who have been priced out of the market considerably. I wonder whether, in time, a Facebook group or similar may start (a wee bit like a lift-sharing organisation) whereby solo travellers with the same date, start point and destination can agree to share a sleeper cabin and share the costs of the journey. That way, the decision to share the cabin has been made willingly by its two occupants, and the TOC cannot be held responsible for this. This means not only a cheaper fare but also the knowledge in advance of who you’ll be sharing the cabin with- which will put passengers at ease much more than being told when you check in ’right, you’re sharing with X’. Perhaps this is something for regular travellers to look into?
